Waiting for Guffman

**** - The first in a series of three Christopher Guest created satirical mockumentaries (not including “Spinal Tap”, of course), “Waiting for Guffman” skewers small town middle Americans and their tendency to be simultaneously untalented and oblivious to their lack of talent. It’s not hard to tell upon watching this that it had a rather significant influence on Ricky Gervais and Steve Merchant, as their “The Office” uses a very similar format and the David Brent character has a rather ‘Guest-ian’ feel to it (in retrospect). The movie is quite funny throughout, with especially good performances by Fred Willard as the ultra-pompous ‘experienced actor’ and Guest himself as the clearly homosexual theatre director. Some characters were a bit hit and miss (such as Catherine O’Hara’s) and occasionally crossed the thin line between funny to annoying, but overall it was nicely acted and written.